Watching the green shoots grow?

Which came first: the newspapers or the news? This seemingly silly question – while not quite as mystifying as the whole egg-versus-chicken debate – proves relevant when it comes to the big e-word: economy. The press may have helped write us into a recession: now can they help to ease us out? Emphasis is going to be reading between the headlines to keep track of the latest r-word: recovery.

In our e-bulletin last October, we examined the role of the media in not only reporting but helping to bring on the economic decline. Journalistic writing is based on picking an angle on a news story and then building on it for all its worth. That’s what sells newspapers. But it can be easy to forget that the effect of these words on the readers can go on to affect the story itself.

The use of the word ‘recession’ had shot up even before that crunch was properly heard. When the stock markets hit crisis point last autumn, experts and non-experts alike blamed a huge loss of confidence in the economy. (And where did that come from?)

Peter Mandelson, the Business Secretary, has recently been pushing his plea for optimism; he told the Association of British Insurers that ‘the language of austerity’ could only make the recession ‘longer and worse’.

Our research so far shows that the word ‘recovery’ popped up in the broadsheet newspapers over three times as much this April compared with a year ago; while ‘green shoots’ emerges more than 20 times as often. Both terms’ usage has increased steadily since January, with ‘recovery’ making 885 appearances at the start of the year, but 1341 in April.

Admittedly, although the numbers of references from early this year are way up on the same months of 2008, most stories from January 2009 were gloomily noting how far off recovery was. Many April articles were only cautiously optimistic, yet these terms crop up more and more. It could be that just repeating them again and again is enough to hasten recovery.

Consumer confidence recently crept up to the highest it’s been since August 2007, though this is still a modest figure. In fact, ‘confidence’ could be our third buzzword: the press seem uncertain how much we should have, but they are sure it’s what we need to have.

May’s Recovery Watch sees the references levelling out in line with April’s (and the stockmarkets’ performance). Could this be the beginning of the end, or have we just been distracted by swine flu and MPs’ expenses? A leading economic think-tank (the National Institute of Economic and Social Research) has suggested we might be climbing out of the trough, but others are more cautious. After all, there’s the small matter of paying back our loans.

No doubt this isn’t the end of the story. What will be? We’ll keep our newspapers peeled and let you know.